A City Remembers

"Stories....If we don't tell them, they die. Then we don't remember who we are or why we're here....It's what everybody wants, isn't it? For someone to see the hurt in him and set it down in a story, like it matters."
Excerpt from A Secret Life of Bees

It's been an amazing time to be in New York City. I've fallen in love with this paradoxical city for many reasons, many of which I still want to recount to you before I leave. I have had the rare opportunity to be a voyeur...in the best sense of the word...a serial mingler of art and life, and a listener of stories, both great and small.

It was the sudden impact of numerous 9/11 stories in the papers this morning that nearly did me in. True, there has been a plethora of TV specials and newspaper accounts covering the horrendous event. True, I have sought out the stories of my NYC friends and casual acquaintances, asking them to tell me where they were on that fateful day 10 years ago. And true, I have listened to Mayor Bloomberg prepare his city for yet another apocalyptic event, and I have sensed a subtle, albeit very real, nervousness hovering in our midst. And true, I have come close to tears on several occasions, but it was the personal stories in this mornings' newspapers finally did it; I gave in and wept like a big ole cry baby.

There was one story from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani who declared a decade ago..."the number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear," establishing his position as not only crisis manager, but consoler-in-chief as well.

One story by Marc Sasseville, an officer in the DC Air National Guard who was one of the first pilots launched over Washington, DC after the 9/11 attack, was given the rare instruction that he had the authority to shoot down an aircraft if he believed necessary. He determined that he wouldn't be able to halt a passenger airliner simply by shooting at it. Instead, he decided that he would have to shear off one of the plane's wings using one of his own. He doubted he could safely escape but quickly put that thought aside as it could prove to be his only viable option.

There was another story from seminary student and part time police officer, Damone Brown, who after watching the planes fly into the twin towers, stepped into a recruiting station and signed up for the Army, hoping to become an Army chaplain. After his basic training, he joined the special forces and went to Fort Bragg to become a Green Beret. After 3 tours of duty in Afghanistan and South America, he returned to Afghanistan where he sustained a traumatic brain injury when his vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device. Left with memory problems and headaches, Sergeant Brown didn't go into rehabilitation but became an Army Ranger instead. Ultimately he finished Seminary school and lives with his wife and 2 sons in Clifton, Md. where he serves as a government contractor and works closely with his church.

The widow's story was told by a 39 year-old native of Bangladesh whose husband left their apartment in Queens the morning of 9/11 and never returned. Two days later she gave birth to their son, Farqad. A year later she moved to Edmond, Oklahoma, to be near her sister (that's where my sister lives too. Hi sis !!!)

There was a story from a lawyer who lost his wife, Barbara, when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. And then more poignant stories from an educator, a train operator, a volunteer, a priest, and a little boy who was placed in the seat of a fire truck so his mother, a longtime volunteer with the fire department, could assist men and women preparing for dispatch that fateful day. One by one, fifteen stories...fifteen lives changed forever.

Then there are the expensive, full page ads in the newspapers taken out by companies that lost valued employees, and in grievous eloquence, go on to list their names one by one.

I think one of the most moving ads appeared in the WSJ, put there by the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation:


Entitled "The Pledge," the copy reads like this:

"If you are ever trapped under a ton of rubble, I promise to sniff you out.
I promise to be worth every cent of the $10,000 that it took to train me.
I promise to ignore all other more fascinating smells and concentrate on the scent of live humans.
I promise to go about my work with a wagging tail, even if my paws get sore.
I promise never to give up."

I don't know yet where I will go to commemorate 9/11 on Sunday except that for sure I will begin the day at the beautiful St. Bartholomew's Church on Lexington Avenue along with my dear friends, Mary Jane and Terry, both former Texans who have lived in NYC since we all graduated from The University of Texas in......well, never mind. That's a story that shall remain untold.

I will not go on the subway that day nor will I be allowed to enter the commemorative sight since it will be for families of the 9/11 victims only. I will not hang out in Times Square or walk anywhere near Wall Street, but I will go somewhere meaningful on this island of Manhattan. Somewhere, I'm sure, I will reflect my own sad memories of 2001 spent on another island, Monhegan Island, Maine, some ten miles off the coast and so wild and remote that I and my fellow painters did not even hear about the attack until hours after it had happened. As we pieced together bits of information from outdated phone systems and one lone TV station, we were left with the same sense of horror that the rest of the world was feeling. An artist standing next to me on the beach noticed that the flag on top of the Island Inn was being lowered to half mast. Quietly, and with tears streaming down his face, I saw him rub out the flag in his painting and then repaint the flag as we now saw it...at half staff. Another friend, Carol Raybin from NYC, was called out of our painting group the next day, and later I found her sitting in her room, numb and dazed from being told that the light of her life, her nephew, was one of the ones flying on the plane that hit the first Twin Tower. This beloved nephew, who had given her multiple shares of his wildly successful business, was the reason Carol had been able to retire from a teaching position and paint full time. Stories abounded for the next week as we watched fighter jets patrolling the coast overhead and as we waited for the opportunity to finally fly home.

There will be more stories to unfold as the clock ticks forward to 9/11/11. And like you and like me, New Yorkers will recall that horrible day and retell their stories over and over. Stories, like axes, that will serve to break up the ice within them. Tears will rightly flow and hugs will be given freely, and maybe.... just maybe, if only for a day, Americans all over this proud land will forget their financial woes and their partisan differences and remember how great is is to live in this brave, strong, resilient country of ours. Remember to tell your stories; don't let them die, because they matter.




God bless America. And God bless you, my friends and family.
And Audrey dear, I'm glad you didn't live to see the infamous day unfold. You were such a survivor yourself, and you would have had words of wisdom to give us. But it would have broken your heart. Rest in peace, my fair lady.
Love, Anna



Audrey Hepburn
1929-1993

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